Walking Around

I feel as if I have had more visual input than I can properly digest today, although I suppose that that is pretty much standard for tourism. I have also been on my feet for about ninety percent of my waking hours so far, and am now bushed, although I think it was a day well spent.

My hostel is about three blocks from Regent’s park, and so I decided to go try going for a run there when I woke up this morning. The last time I ran abroad was in India, which necessitated overcoming a certain number of physical and social barriers, which thankfully were not in place here, and it turned out to be a great place to run—lots of winding paths through green manicured lawns and beds of flowers, with glimpses of the zoo at the center of the park as I jogged past.
After I got back to the hostel and started my day properly, I decided to go to the East End of the city, where there are a bunch of street markets open on Sunday. The first of these was the Columbia St. flower market (picture), which was unbelievably crowded, and noisy, with cockney barkers calling their wares and the fronds belonging to a few ambitious purchasers waving above the throng. It was actually a great destination for me; since I could fully admire the beauty of the wares without feeling the least desire to buy (I couldn’t very well take a potted plant back on the plane!). After cruising through the flower market for a while I walked back to my tube station via Brick Lane and Petticoat Lane, two other locations of street markets with a range of things for sale from leather jackets to women’s shoes to cell phones. Some things looked authentically vintage and some looked authentically fenced.

I also ended up going through what must be the main Bangladeshi community in London. I passed many signs in a (to me) frustratingly almost-readable Indic script, as well as sweet shops, curry houses, and posters advertising namkeen and international calling cards. I hope I will get a chance to come back at some point and try one of the restaurants.

Today, instead, I went back to Trafalgar Square to have afternoon tea at the café in the crypt (second time turned out to be the charm), and then hit up the National Portrait Gallery. Despite the fact that I already went there when I was here before, it was cool to go back, especially since I know a lot more British history now than I did then, and was able to put back-stories to faces. Some figure it was cool to see and finally know who they were (Emmeline Pankhurst, David Lloyd George), others, now that I know who they are, I’m kind of ashamed to see their portraits hanging in state (Judge Jeffries, Robert Clive, Cecil Rhodes). Of course the greatest fun of the portrait gallery is coming face to face with figures I feel I already know so well from literature—Keats, Eliot, Austen, the Brontes…it’s always good to see them.

Although all of these activities were perfectly reasonable uses of my time here, I feel as if doing them back to back I did not quite think through the total amount of time I would end up walking today, with the result that my back and legs are pretty tired tonight, but I will be sitting in a library (although it will be a historic one at Oxford) for the next couple days, so it should all balance out eventually.